Late extract addition

[RenoDean]

i am going to brew a pale ale tomorrow using a partial mash recipe. i need to use about three pounds of light DME. i want to do a late extract addition. i was thinking about mixing the DME with water in a separate pot and heating it almost to a boil, then adding the DME solution to my wort at the last ten minutes of boil. i figured it would mix easier, decrease in loss of boil time, and add back the half gallon or so of boil off. Any suggestions on this, is half gallon of water/3lbs DME a good ratio? my wort usually starts out at almost 4 gallons at beginning of boil. i am mashing almost 6 lbs of grain using a process similar to death brewers stovetop BIAB parial mash.

 

[Pappers_]

Never done, can't say, but that ratio sounds really small to me, and kind of defeats the purpose of the late extract. Boiling that much extract in that small amount of water runs the risk of burning/carmelization/darkening, I would think.

When I do partial mashes, I use the wort from the grains for most of the boil, and add all the DME in the final 15 minutes. I've never worried about the loss in boil time - the only thing it would affect would be hops utilization and I just don't imagine that the affect is very great.

In any case, doing it the way you suggest would be an interesting experiment and you could report back! Cheers,

Jim

 

[rico567]

I do extract beers, and now do late additions on all my batches. I try to put in about 1/4 of the fermentables at the outset to ensure hop utilization, then dump in the rest with about 20 min. to go in the boil. Seems to work, and definitely get a lighter product.

 

[AFAJ Brew Guy]

Whoo hoo, another Nothern Nevada brewer! Welcome.

As for your question I do PM brews as well and when I do a late addition with the extract I put in about 2/3 with 15 left in the boil. IMO I would not worry about adding it to some water and going that route. I stir the DME in with a whisk and by the end of the boil it is all dissolved.

The one thing that I would worry about is hitting your target OG. It would seem that you would have bit more dilution of the sugars. Then again maybe not.

However like Pappers said sounds like an interesting experiment. Give it a shot, see what happens.

 

[RenoDean]

Thanks for the advice. The main reason i wanted to try this is because most of the time i have no help on brew day and slowly pouring the DME into the wort while stirring gets a little irritating. i figured if i got the DME somewhat liquified and warm but not boiled it would make adding it to the wort a little easier and quicker. Plus steam from the boiling wort causes the DME at the top of the bag i am pouring from to clump and things get messy(then my wife gets mad).

 

[ericm]

I generally just pour slowly while stirring, but you can pre-mix the DME with some cold water (to a sort of thick pancake batter consistency) and stir out the clumps there, it then won't clump when you add it to the kettle

(cold is actually better than warm for this pre-mixing)

 

[AFAJ Brew Guy]

Also another thing you can try is to poor the DME into a stainless mixing bowl. This is what I do and helps with the "bag clumps".

That and she complains too much tell her she cant have any. You brewed it, its all yours!